What a Used Bicycle has to Do With Your Home Search

The woman sounded a little crazy on the phone: Please, please don’t sell it to someone else before I get there! I don’t want to lose this one, too.

I assured her that we had a deal—she’d agreed to buy my bike for $50—and that I wouldn’t sell it to anyone else during the 45 minutes it would take her to get to my house. She said she’d hurry anyway.

Not Worth the Paper They’re Printed on
What does selling old bicycles on Craigslist have to do with buying a house? In both cases, verbal agreements can leave you without the item you thought you purchased.

It’s Your Word Against Someone Else’s
Consider this scenario: You submit a written offer on a home, and you and the seller verbally negotiate until you agree on a price and terms. You’ve bought a house, right? Wrong. Until your agreement is in writing and both parties have signed it, that seller could accept another offer.

Even if your initial offer to a seller is in writing, any subsequent counteroffers should be in writing, too. Talk to a Texas REALTOR® to learn the best way to expedite negotiations and make them legally binding.

The lady who purchased my bike was pretty stressed about possibly losing a 22-year-old mountain bike due to a verbal agreement. I can’t imagine how crazy she would be on the phone if a $200,000 house were on the line.